TikTok’s new StemDrop gives artists a fresh chance to earn royalties

This new TikTok feature will give content creators and fans the opportunity to collaborate, make connections, and even make some money…

by Bobby Owsinski from Music 3.0.

TikTok has announced a new feature called StemDrop, which will provide users with the opportunity to remix a song and create their own version of the track. Since an artist’s music can be heard and used in new ways, it’s conceivably a new way for artists to increase their royalties from the platform.

Get Your Stems Out

The idea is for artists to upload stems of their songs to the platform, where users can then remix the song to better fit their needs in their videos. Take note that “stems” doesn’t mean individual tracks (many use the term incorrectly today), but submixes of different arrangement elements of the song. For instance, the rhythm section, vocals and loops, or drums, guitars, vocals and background vocals. In other words, these are groups of tracks not the individual ones.

What’s more, TikTok is leading everything off in a collaboration with hit maker producer Max Martin. As stated in the platform’s announcement, ““StemDrop launches in collaboration with one of the greatest songwriting teams in history, led by Max Martin. TikTok creators globally are exclusively provided with music ‘stems’ and invited to produce their own versions of a brand-new song titled ‘Red Lights’ written by the prolific hitmakers.”

TikTok will release a new StemDrop Mixer powered by Samsung that will facilitate both mixing and uploading on the app. Although there’s no exact mention of it, one has to wonder if it will only be available on Samsung devices, so we’ll have to see on that.

Artists And Remixes

It used to be that artists were very protective of their music and the last thing they wanted was unauthorized mixes, especially from someone other than a pro. These days artists are used to making stems for television or movie syncs, so this is just another place to use something that was already created.

It also gives artists more possibilities for royalties as well, as some users might want the song without the vocals, or just want to use a loop or another stem on their videos. Since artists get paid based on how many videos their music is used on (as opposed to how many views their own video gets), this just provides more opportunities for revenue. Let’s see how many artists and users actually use the feature.

StemDrop will be available on October 26th.

Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author and coach. He has authored 24 books on recording, music, the music business and social media.